Tennis player at centre of sexist umpire row given one of biggest grand slam fines

Vallejo suggested that one of the reasons he was defeated by teenager Moise Kouame, in a match that lasted four hours and 56 minutes, was because his match was umpired by a woman, telling Clay magazine: “This sort of match needs to be umpired by a man, it’s very difficult for a woman to do it.

“It has to be refereed by a man, because it’s a very demanding crowd and you need a lot of strength to go against the crowd.”

It was only the second grand slam Vallejo has played in after making his major debut at the Australian Open, and he received £112,665 (€130,000) in prize money for reaching the second round. The French Tennis Federation and Roland-Garros organisers deemed his comments “unacceptable” and announced a fine.

Tournament organiser Amélie Mauresmo told a press briefing: “This is clearly something that is unacceptable to us, to the tournament, and to the federation even beyond the tournament. This kind of language has no place here.”

The federation’s statement said: “The competence of an umpire is not determined by their gender, but by their professionalism and ability to officiate at the highest level. The outcome of a sporting event, whether positive or negative, can never justify or excuse such remarks.”

Vallejo posted on social media on Friday saying the comments were “taken out of context” and added: “I never spoke about women in general, I spoke about the referee specifically, who didn’t handle the crowd at any point during the match.” He has since deleted that post on X.

At the 2025 US Open, Daniil Medvedev was fined $42,500 (£31,568) for his behaviour during his first-round defeat by Benjamin Bonzi, of which $30,000 was for unsportsmanlike conduct, and $12,500 for racket abuse.

Serena Williams was fined $17,000 (£12,627) for code violations including calling the umpire of her US final defeat in 2018 a “liar” and “thief”.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]